Omar draws parallel between Kedarnath, JK rain furies

Jammu, Sep 7: Drawing parallel between last year's Kedarnath tragedy and the Jammu and Kashmir's flood, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on Sept 6 hoped that his government will be able to keep the death toll less by better and speedy rescue operation.

Omar said that the Centre has granted permission to use Rs 1,000 National Disaster Response Fund (NDRF). "By giving such a name of Kedarnath tragedy-2 your tickers run fast, but the situation is like that. There was loss due to rains and here was also loss due to rains.

"That state has faced such a situation and this state is facing such a situation. However, there were more deaths there than here," Omar told reporters here today. He was replying to a question whether JK's rains triggering flash-floods can be termed as Kedarnath-2. Omar further said "but we hope that we will be able to keep death toll less by better and speedy rescue operation.

"Army has played good role and are rescuing people by posing their lives to danger, we want the last man rescued." He said, "our priority is to undertake rescue operations and save lives of people."

Second point is to undertake relief and rehabilitation operation to rebuild all infrastructure -- roads, water supplies, power supply bridges etc. Referring to the Centre's support, he said that JK has Rs 1000 crore available under State Disaster Relief Fund (SDRF).

"The Centre has given us authorisation to use that money and Union Home minister has also assured us that there will be no dearth of money for relief and rehabilitation work", Omar said.

"When rain will stop and floods would recede, we will prepare our memorandum and submit to the Centre. "They have re-assured that Centre will dispatch a inter-ministerial team and officials teams for assessment in Kashmir and Jammu provinces and they will make their assessment and will finalise the relief package for J&K," he said.

PTI